Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

158 Misc. 488

People v. May

New York County Courts

Decided February 26, 1936

New York County Courts · decided 1936-02-26

Relies on People v. . Glen · People Ex Rel. Hirschberg v. Supreme Court · People v. Teal

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1936-02-26

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently February 1950

5 state decisions

30193619401950decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Fitzgerald, J.

¶1Motion by defendants to inspect the minutes of the Grand Jury on which an Information for violation of Section 1293-d of the Penal Law was filed by the District Attorney on the 7th day of February, 1936, and the minutes on which was based the Information filed on the 17th day of February, 1936, both in the Court of Special Sessions, County of Kings, against the above named defendants and for a further order directing the District Attorney to deliver to the said defendants copies of the aforesaid minutes of the Grand Jury which directed the filing of the aforesaid described informations against the said defendants."

¶2It is stated in the moving papers that the motion is made in contemplation of a motion to dismiss the pending informations.

¶3Section 952-t of the Code of Criminal Procedure prohibits access to a grand jury minutes except upon the written order of the court after hearing the said district attorney."

¶4The power of the court to permit an inspection under certain circumstances is well settled. (People ex rel. Hirschberg v. Supreme Court, 269 N. Y. 392, at p. 395.)

¶5To justify an inspection the moving papers must show, among others:

¶6a. That a reasonable effort has been made to learn, without an inspection of the grand jury minutes, what was testified before the grand jury and what was learned; what information has not been obtainable and the reasons therefor. (People v. Teal, 60 Misc. 517.)

¶7*489b. What the defendant surmises was the testimony before the grand jury, and the ground of such surmises, and that the surmises are reasonable.

¶8c. That the motion is in good faith; that a motion to set aside the indictment is contemplated, because defendant believes, and such belief is reasonable for the reasons stated, that the grand jury received other than legal evidence to such an extent and in such a manner as to invalidate the indictment; that the legal evidence is insufficient to warrant the indictment and defendant intends to move to set it aside on constitutional grounds. (People v. Glen, 173 N. Y. 395; People v. Sexton, 187 id. 495.)

¶9The moving papers do not comply with the foregoing requirements.

¶10The sole purpose of permitting a defendant to inspect the grand jury minutes is to enable him to move to set aside the indictment on the ground that his constitutional rights have been invaded. (Matter of Montgomery, 126 App. Div. 72; People v. Jakeway, 88 Misc. 124.)

¶11That is not the purpose of the inspection sought.

¶12There is no indictment charging the defendants with crime.

¶13Informations have been filed against the defendants in the Court of Special Sessions. The avowed purpose of the inspection is to enable defendants to move to set aside the informations filed in the Court of Special Sessions.

¶14There is no such procedure known to the law; no authority has been shown to justify the court in permitting an inspection for such a purpose. In the opinion of the court there is no such power.

¶15Motion denied.

/158/misc/488 · .json · Public domain